This Wisdom Comes from Hearing
The third ground names its worldly station — a king among the gods of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven, whose particular work is helping beings let go of craving — and the count of attainments rises again, from a thousand to a hundred thousand. Then Vajragarbha begins the closing verse, and it retraces the same descent Part 422 made in prose, arriving at the same unglamorous place.
A King Among the Thirty-Three
The station rises with the ground, and so does what it is for. The first ground's king ruled a continent and removed stinginess; the second's turned a wheel and removed broken discipline; this one rules in a heaven, and the fault it addresses is the one that heaven itself would most encourage.
「佛子！是名菩薩第三發光地。菩薩住此地，多作三十三天王，能以方便，令諸眾生捨離貪欲。布施、愛語、利行、同事——如是一切諸所作業，皆不離念佛，不離念法，不離念僧，乃至不離念具足一切種、一切智智。復作是念：『我當於一切眾生中為首、為勝、為殊勝、為妙、為微妙、為上、為無上，乃至為一切智智依止者。』
"Child of the Buddha! This is called the bodhisattva's third ground, Prabhākarī, the Luminous Ground. A bodhisattva abiding on this ground most often becomes a king of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven, able by skillful means to cause beings to give up craving and desire. Giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and working alongside others — in all such deeds as these they never depart from the recollection of the Buddha, never depart from the recollection of the Dharma, never depart from the recollection of the Saṅgha, and so on up to never departing from the recollection of being fully endowed with all modes and with all-knowing wisdom itself. And they think further: 'Among all sentient beings I ought to be the foremost, the best, the most excellent, the wondrous, the subtly wondrous, the superior, the unsurpassed — and so on up to being that upon which all-knowing wisdom itself relies.'
若勤行精進，於一念頃，得百千三昧，得見百千佛，知百千佛神力，能動百千佛世界，乃至示現百千身，一一身百千菩薩以為眷屬；若以菩薩殊勝願力自在示現，過於此數，百劫、千劫乃至百千億那由他劫不能數知。」
Should they practice with diligent effort, in the space of a single thought they attain a hundred thousand samādhis, come to see a hundred thousand buddhas, know the spiritual power of a hundred thousand buddhas, are able to shake a hundred thousand buddha-worlds, and so on up to manifesting a hundred thousand bodies, each single body having a hundred thousand bodhisattvas as its retinue. And if by the surpassing power of a bodhisattva's own vows they display themselves with sovereign freedom, it goes beyond this number — a hundred kalpas, a thousand kalpas, on up to a hundred thousand million nayutas of kalpas could not count it or know it."
令諸眾生捨離貪欲 — causing beings to give up craving and desire. Placed in the Trāyastriṃśa heaven, this is the least convenient assignment the grounds have given yet. The heaven of the Thirty-Three is a place of pleasures, and its inhabitants have no complaint about them. Part 425 said the bodhisattva chooses birth wherever the factors of awakening can be fulfilled; this is an instance of that choice, and it lands them somewhere the work is unwelcome rather than somewhere it is easy.
The Verse Retraces the Descent
The verse moves quickly through what the prose established — the ten minds, the contemplation of the conditioned, the pity for beings — and then reaches the question of method. What follows is the chain of Part 422, compressed into four lines and run in the same direction.
爾時，金剛藏菩薩欲重宣其義而說頌曰：
「清淨安住明盛心，厭離無貪無害心，堅固勇猛廣大心，智者以此入三地。
菩薩住此發光地，觀諸行法苦無常，不淨敗壞速歸滅，無堅無住無來往。
觀諸有為如重病，憂悲苦惱惑所纏，三毒猛火恒熾然，無始時來不休息。
厭離三有不貪著，專求佛智無異念，難測難思無等倫，無量無邊無逼惱。
Then Vajragarbha Bodhisattva, wishing to state this meaning again, spoke in verse, saying:
"A pure mind, a mind settled and abiding, a mind bright and flourishing; a mind of revulsion, free of greed and doing no harm; a firm mind, a valorous mind, a broad and great mind — by these the wise enter the third ground. A bodhisattva abiding on this Luminous Ground contemplates all conditioned dharmas as suffering and impermanent, impure and decaying, swiftly returning to extinction, without solidity, without abiding, neither coming nor going. They contemplate everything conditioned as a grave illness, entangled in grief, in sorrow, in suffering and torment and confusion; the fierce fire of the three poisons burning constantly, never once resting since beginningless time. Turning away in revulsion from the three modes of existence, craving and clinging to nothing, they seek a buddha's wisdom single-mindedly with no other thought — a wisdom unfathomable, inconceivable, without peer, measureless, boundless, and free of all affliction.
見佛智已愍眾生，孤獨無依無救護，三毒熾然常困乏，住諸有獄恒受苦，
煩惱纏覆盲無目，志樂下劣喪法寶，隨順生死怖涅槃，我應救彼勤精進。
將求智慧益眾生，思何方便令解脫？不離如來無礙智，彼復無生慧所起。
心念此慧從聞得，如是思惟自勤勵，日夜聽習無間然，唯以正法為尊重。
Having seen a buddha's wisdom, they take pity on beings — alone, without refuge, with none to save them; blazing with the three poisons and constantly in want; dwelling in the prisons of existence and forever undergoing suffering; wrapped about and covered by the afflictions, blind and without eyes; their aspiration inferior, the treasure of the Dharma lost to them; going along with birth and death and afraid of nirvāṇa. 'These I should rescue' — and so they practice with diligent effort. Seeking wisdom in order to benefit beings, they consider: by what skillful means may these be liberated? It is not apart from a tathāgata's unobstructed wisdom; and that in turn arises from the wisdom of non-arising. They reflect that this wisdom is obtained through hearing; and considering thus, they spur themselves onward, listening and studying day and night without interruption, honoring the true Dharma alone.
隨順生死怖涅槃 — going along with birth and death and afraid of nirvāṇa. Of the seven conditions the verse pities, this is the one that is not a hardship. Beings are not merely trapped; they are comfortable with the trap and frightened of the exit. It is the same observation the second ground made about those content with a smaller vehicle, pushed one step further back.
心念此慧從聞得 — this wisdom is obtained through hearing. The prose in Part 422 reached the same conclusion through five explicit links; the verse gets there in three and states the last one flatly. Everything the third ground contains — the absorptions, the powers, the divine eye, the refusal of a heavenly rebirth — is downstream of somebody having listened to something.
Note what the verse does with that conclusion. It does not treat hearing as a preliminary now safely behind the bodhisattva. The next line is 日夜聽習無間然, listening and studying day and night without interruption — present tense, ongoing, and the practice of someone who already has the samādhis.
Part 426 Complete
This continues Prabhākarī, the third of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 concludes fascicle thirty-five in Part 427, as the verse finishes — everything given up for the Dharma, from cities and treasure to the body's own marrow, and the declaration that giving these away is not the hard part; then the fire pit once more, the absorptions and the powers, the king among the Thirty-Three, and Vajragarbha's closing word that the third ground has now been explained.